Life Care Hospitals???

mattsmom81 · Nov 16, 2003

Hmm. I don't know any nurses who work at one but we have several in our area....competing with Kindred aka Vencor.

A RT I work with went there and didn't stay long...but he said said long term 'catastrophic' care was not his thing. Running from vent to vent...managing the chronic problems and complications that arise along the way. Many are unweanable vents dying slowly with nowhere else to go. A few actually recover. :)

I worked at Vencor when I was young and it was not bad in the ICU....but on the floors you could have 6 or more trachs/vents with huge decubs, infections, resistant bugs etc to deal with. Not everyone likes to do this sort of thing. Personally I would not work the floor there.

But...to each his/her own. :cool:

Do you like that kind of work Brownie? Did you ever work Vencor facilities in your travels??

stressednurse · Nov 16, 2003

I have worked at one Life Care facility in my city (pittsburgh area-Wilkinsburg). It wasn't much worse than any other sub-acute patient care areas in the hospitals. Their "ICU" was long term vent patients, lots of pressure sores and stasis ulcers. Most patients won't recover as the damage is so severe and they were compromised at the onset of what ever happened. The supplies were usually available for the treatments and meds were usually there too. Their long term care units were simular, supplies and meds were there.

Never worked at Vencor, took patients from that facility on a specialty critical care team though.

I do have a negative experience though with Life Care as I worked the night prior to the mass shooting spree that began at the McDonalds fast food establishment about half a block from where I worked that night as an agency nurse. That was the last shift I did there! And I got out of there late and was kinda hungry, for some reason I just opted to go home otherwise I might have been part of that mess.

Brownms46 · Nov 16, 2003

Mattsmom, thanks for the response:)! What you described is exactly what I envisioned after I got thru talking to a head hunter for over 2 frigging hours, who gave me the cream puff version of the job! The first thing she did was insult all LPNS, and I almost hung the phone up in her face! She was telling me how flaky they all were:(! But I held off, and tried to gleam some info from her!

This was the pitch! $5000 up front on first pay check for sign on. Great bennies, $20/hr base with $2.75 diff, and twelve hr shifts, with the ability to work only 3 desired shifts a week, and OT after 36hrs. Max cap for unit 26 with pt limit at 3-4. Told me that the nurses she had sent there were sending her flowers, and telling her, this was the last job they would ever have, etc...etc.

Position was in Sparks/Reno area, and was only on one floor of the two hospitals there. All new equipment, and new unit. I was to interview on the phone Monday, and could be working in two weeks. After talking with her, I went to the website, and found out they had Stage I to IV decubitus, MRSA/VRE, and I quickly emailed her, and said NO THANKS!!

All I could think of was being gowned up doing complex drsg changes, and sweating in the process.

NO mattsmom, this is NOT something I would enjoy doing at all! I have stayed away from places like Vencor/Kindred, and as soon as I discovered exactly what this was, I was like NO WAY!

stressednurse thanks for the post, and I'm very thankful you were't at that McDonald on that day:)! What an awful experience that must have been to know how close you came!